Monday Mixer: Check out this dance scene mash up!

Posted Monday, September 28, 2015 at 3:55 PM Central

by John Couture

What a weekend. Oh, and I suppose something happened at the box office as well.

As most of you could probably tell, we had some technical difficulties this past weekend that took our sites down for a spell, but if you're reading this that means that we've come through the tunnel and there is indeed light at the end of it. Otherwise, I'm just posting and talking to myself which is pretty lame and borderline psychotic, so let's hope that you're reading this on a fully functional website.

I could get into all of the technical jargon and whatnot, but let's face it, I'm not that guy. Suffice to say, there were some unsavory people out there who thought it would be sporting for them to mess with our stuff. After we made a few adjustments, here we are fresh as a daisy.

OK, now I just sound like a commercial for a dryer sheet. I better just carry on and get back to what I am good at and that's talking about movies and the box office. Of course, this weekend's results only confirm my hunch that our collective taste in movies is plummeting faster than the Titans playoff chances. Did I really say playoffs after three weeks? Is it hockey season yet?

Box Office 411

I suppose Adam Sandler can rejoice in the fact that now that his live-action film career is in a free fall that he can rest on his animated laurels. I had projected that Hotel Transylvania 2 would make $30 million tops. No matter what, there was no way it would come close to the original Hotel Transylvania's $42 million opening. No, this film would bomb (relatively speaking) and that would be that.

I couldn't be more wrong.

Not only did Hotel Transylvania 2 flirt with its predecessor's opening number, but it blew it out of the water to the tune of $47.5 million. That also happens to be a new record for a September opening, besting Hotel Transylvania's previous top mark. So much for my doom and gloom predictions about the rest of September, eh?

Hotel Transylvania 2 looks like it will surpass $150 million easily unless the bottom completely falls out of the film (which it might still since it only has a 52% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). But family films rarely drop off so steeply, instead having longer than expected legs which explains why so many end up on those top box office performer of the year lists. With that in mind, I fully expect Hotel Transylvania 2 to end up with over $175 million.

The other new wide release this weekend was The Intern which boasted bonafide star power in Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway. It was also written and directed by romantic comedy queen Nancy Meyers whose names carries her own amount of cachet with certain audiences. What should have been a perfect storm of sorts was merely a little squall as the film did a so-so $18.2 million opening weekend.

I know that Warner Bros. was hoping to cash in over $25 million, but with the unexpected success of Hotel Transylvania 2, there just wasn't enough business to go around. Still $18 million is nothing to sneeze at and the film should have decent holds over the next few weeks to held line its coffers. When the dust settles, I wouldn't be surprised to see it with right around $75 million.

Eli Roth's troubled horror film The Green Inferno had a bumpy road to megaplexes and the road didn't get much easier upon release. Despite opening on over 1,500 screens, the film was only able to eek out $3.5 million for a ninth place finish. That performance has to be a bit of a bummer for the Hostel director, but given the real-life drama behind the film's distribution path, any release at all should be considered a success.

Last week, we talked about Everest and how successful its strategy was to debut the film on IMAX and other large format theaters before a wider release. Well, that praise may have been a bit premature. Despite adding almost 2,500 screens, Everest was only able to make about $13 million in fourth place. Still, with a cumulative gross approaching $25 million, the release strategy has been proven to work.

The filmmakers behind The Walk might want to take notes though and temper their own expectations as they follow a similar release strategy beginning this Wednesday. One film that continues to defy the odds is Sicario. With a limited expansion this weekend to 59 screens, the film added another $1.7 million to its total ahead of next week's wide release. It should be interesting to see what it ultimately does this weekend against formidable competition mainly in the form of The Martian, which got its own fortuitous free marketing this morning when NASA announced that there's liquid water on Mars.

Sadly, it's a bit late in the game for a re-write, but the extra buzz on the red planet can only help the film, right?

Quick Hitters

• So, I'm not going to waste a lot of your time with quick hitters these week as there's a good chance that most of them would be sorely outdated by the time you read this. With that in mind, I present the only thing that I feel you need to see this week. It's an expertly edited mashup of 100 movie scenes set to "Uptown Funk." It will certainly get you moving and bring a smile to your face and after this week away, that's all we want, right?

MUBAR, Mixed Up Beyond All Recognition.